


Catty-Cornered

by CopperBeech



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Animals, Aziraphale's Bookshop (Good Omens), CATS the musical, Cats, Demon Summoning, Don't copy to another site, Fluff and Humor, Gen, Original Character(s), Pre-Antichrist, Prophecy, Responsible Cat Ownership, Soft Crowley (Good Omens), Transformation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-07
Updated: 2019-09-07
Packaged: 2020-10-11 09:22:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,487
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20543819
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CopperBeech/pseuds/CopperBeech
Summary: Set just before the birth of the Antichrist becomes known. Crowley has a new pet and a problem.“Hey, no,” he said. “I clean out that tray, I’m not having your little cobblers parked all over my kitchen table.” He remembered something from the How To Care For Your New Cat pamphlet that the pet store clerk had slipped into the carrier on his last visit, got the plant mister and squirted a stream at the cat. It scrambled, scarpered under the couch again, and Crowley felt like the lowest form of life on earth, crawling on his belly – at least that came naturally –- to apologize and wheedle.This is making me into a blubbering eejit, he thought. I’m a demon, I’m not meant to be this kind of a soft touch. And then the idea came to him:I know who is. I’m giving this cat to Aziraphale.





	Catty-Cornered

The cat was hanging about in front of the building when Crowley returned from the market with a bottle of Caol Ila. He’d been on edge lately, something in the air, and a good evening with a twelve-year-old single malt and what Aziraphale still called _bebop,_ turned up to the max though miraculously never bothering the neighbors, seemed to be the ticket. It was still light, though dropping, and the cat's white, fluffy coat showed up strikingly, almost glowing in the dimness. It rubbed itself against the railing as he approached the door, in the classic maneuver of a cat courting human attention. It was, he noted when it turned its plumey tail end to him, a tom.

“Well, some posh madam’s calling Here Kitty Kitty for you,” he said, hunkering down. There was no collar. It was a big, sturdy cat, blocky like those American longhairs that people paid for handsomely. Clearly not a stray.

“Can’t do much for you, mate,” he said and headed in the door. The cat made a dash, just missing its chance.

“You’ll remember where home is quick enough,” he said.

* * *

The cat was still there in the morning. This time, when he left the building, it was mewing as it rubbed the railings, with a certain urgency.

“You been here all night?” Crowley knelt and, feeling a bit of a prat, scratched the cat behind the ears. It rolled on the pavement, but kept mewing.

“You must be hungry,” he said. “Did someone kick you out, is that it? Know how it feels, mate.” He rubbed the cat’s belly. “Told you though, can’t do much for you.”

The cat was waiting, tail around its paws, when he got back a half hour later from the nearest market with a couple of pull-tab tins of white tuna in oil, the kind you put in a packed lunch. He opened one and set it down. The cat looked up at him. Licked the top of the tuna and looked up at him again.

“Oh, all right,” he said, feeling fairly ridiculous as he dipped finger and thumb into the oily fish and held it out. The cat snaffled it up from his hand, rough tongue going after the last bits of oil. He knelt there picking tidbits out of the tin till most of it was gone. Then the cat sat back on its hunkers and began to groom with a fastidiousness remarkable even for its species.

“Feed it, you’ll own it, mate.” The speaker was a complete stranger who had nonetheless sussed out pretty much what was going on. “Unless that’s what you want. There’s a pet store in the next street, you could put up a sign if you think it’s lost.”

The cat was rubbing his ankles now. “See? Already thinks it belongs to you.”

* * *

The cat was sunning itself on the pavement when he got back. The day’s tempting had been pretty academic, humans were getting ever better at doing half the job themselves, and he was deciding whether to spend the evening getting the Bentley out for a drive or maybe doing a little overtime when the cat swiped lightly at his trouser cuffs. “What now? More tuna?”

The cat stalked up to the door of the building and began to pace back and forth in front of it.

“You know I can’t – oh, all right.” He opened up. The cat trotted after him. No one was in the halls. It was a no-pets building, which would not have made a difference to Crowley anyway, but he felt an unaccountable fellowship with the cat. The remaining tin of tuna was still in his pocket; he found a saucer in the cupboard, put the tuna on it, found a bowl, filled it with water from the tap, and set the lot down on the kitchen lino. The cat tucked in.

“All right, little puffy-fluff,” he said in a voice that sounded simpering and ridiculous even to his own ears, “just one night. It’s meant to rain.”

The cat kept on eating, eagerly yet daintily. This set off a chain of thought. All that food had to go somewhere. All right, he thought, in for a penny.

* * *

The clerk rang up several cans of assorted cat food, a sparkly, fluffy pounce toy, a disposable litter tray and a small bag of litter. “We’ve got a sale on the larger size,” she said.

“I’m just cat sitting for a few nights,” he said.

I did say a few nights, didn’t I, he thought as he hefted the carrier bag. Let’s be sensible. Just one.

* * *

By the third day the cat seemed very comfortable in the flat. The only thing that seemed to bother it was him leaving. As soon as he went near the door it would set up a fuss, miaow, and flick his trouser cuffs with its forepaws as if distraught.

“‘I’ll be back before you know it, Snowflake,” he said. “It’s just that I’ve got work. Humans to tempt and corrupt. Reports to make. I can’t sit here throwing that ball for you all day.”

He had bought a crocheted ball filled with catnip, which the cat seemed to dote on. It still favored the human-grade tuna, and would not touch the cheaper of the commercial cat foods he had laid in, though it clearly appreciated the little pouches of duck meat in sauce or mahi-mahi.

The cat miaowed desolately as he went down the hall. He felt like a heel.

Get a grip on yourself, he thought. What kind of demon are you? It’s just a cat.

* * *

That night, waking for a moment in the middle of a sleep of truly reptilian torpor, he felt a weight on the covers and opened his eyes to see the cat nestled next to him. It was purring.

“You’re going to shed,” he said.

There was nothing for it. He put out a hand to push the cat off the bed and found himself drifting back to sleep as he stroked it. He dropped off with his hand over it, protectively.

* * *

The next evening the cat leaped up in his lap as he was settling down to sift the late newscasts for traces of Hellish business working out. He was fond of trying to guess which messes the humans had made for themselves and which were his colleagues’ work.

He’d discovered that the bulk and warmth of the cat on his lap was pleasing. He carded his fingers through the long hair, thinking, I’d better get a brush. “You don’t want hairballs, Snowy-puss,” he said. “I’ll go back to the store in the morning.” The clerk had taken to giving him a knowing smile but had not said anything, even when he bought the bigger bag of litter.

The cat had been terrified when he shouted at his plants earlier that day. He’d heard somewhere that blue-eyed white cats were deaf, but this one didn’t seem to be. In the end he’d relented and spared the plants the fear-of-Hellfire lecture he had stored up for them, feeling a complete plonker as he hunkered down on knees and elbows to coax the cat out from under the couch. It took some more of the duck in the end. He was strangely grateful that it would come up in his lap now. He didn’t move, even when the news program ended and some truly awful comedy sketches came on.

* * *

He’d fallen asleep on the couch. It was hard to fathom how soporific the act of petting the cat was. It had buggered off somewhere though, and the light told him it was close to noon. He pulled himself up, worked a crick out of his neck, and went in the kitchen to make coffee, a taste he’d acquired as far back as sixteenth-century Istanbul, only to find the cat sitting on the table.

“Hey, no,” he said. “I clean out that tray, I’m not having your little cobblers parked all over my kitchen table.” He remembered something from the _How To Care For Your New Cat_ pamphlet that the pet store clerk had slipped into the carrier on his last visit, got the plant mister and squirted a stream at the cat. It scrambled, scarpered under the couch again, and Crowley felt like the lowest form of life on earth, crawling on his belly – at least that came naturally –- to apologize and wheedle.

This is making me into a blubbering eejit, he thought. I’m a demon, I’m not meant to be this kind of a soft touch. And then the idea came to him: _I know who is. I’m giving this cat to Aziraphale._

* * *

Cats and bookshops have always gone together. He didn’t know why he hadn’t thought of it before. It could lounge in a sunny window, keep mice from nibbling at the priceless first editions, be company for the angel in his late night hours of sipping Cabernet and listening to quartets. And of course he could always pay it a visit. Crowley filled a couple of boxes from the grocer's with the supply of food, the catnip ball, the opened bag of litter and the dishes embossed with FAT CAT and GOOD CAT which had replaced the ones from his cupboards, and loaded them in the Bentley’s boot. Then he went back up to the flat and brought out the Sleepypod he had bought the day before so he could take the cat to the vet for a checkup, as the pamphlet enjoined him. “Here, Snowy.”

* * *

The third time Crowley knocked, the owner of the fetishwear shop nearby, who had been changing the window display, popped out to the storefront to say “They haven’t been open all week. I’ve been taking the mail in, I do that for him sometimes.”

“I’ve got a key, “ said Crowley. “I was just being polite.” He’d talked the angel out of it several years back, when they had had a bit of a close call, and had promised only to use it for real emergencies. This wasn’t one exactly, but it wasn’t quite like the angel to close up for _that_ long, at least not to let the mail pile up. He took the sheaf of catalogues and letters.

“Kitty kitty kitty,” said the leather-pants vendor. “What a _pretty kitty,_ pretty pussums. She’s beautiful.”

“Oh, very much _he,_” said Crowley.

“He doesn’t spray?”

“Hasn’t yet.”

The bookstore had the vacant sense of a place that’s been deserted for some time, but he called “Aziraphale? Aziraphale?” several times, feeling as he did that someone had just walked over his grave, which was extra disturbing since graves are one thing demons never expect to have. Had he done this before? He couldn’t think. The cat was agitating in its carrier pod. Did it need the tray? He wouldn’t want it to mess itself in there. He let it out. “Just wait a moment, Snowy, I’ll go get – “ The cat zoomed past him, did a slingshot around Aziraphale’s accounts desk, and began scrabbling at the large round Wilton rug in front of it. The edge of the rug flipped back, fell flat again. The cat scrabbled more, finally hooking a full paw’s worth of claws in the thick wool pile and turning the whole rug back a couple of feet.

There was a summoning circle on the floor of Aziraphale's bookshop. Crowley whistled.

“Learn something new every day,” he said. “You wouldn’t – “ but the cat had taken off again, shooting through the aisles, leading Crowley a chase that coaxed ever mightier Infernal profanities from him till he came round the end of a stack and saw the cat sitting at almost the height of his head on a shelf of rare grimoires. Grimoirium Imperium, he read. Five Bookes of Mysteries. The cat reached with a paw and began batting at one of the other volumes, hooking claws in the top of the spine until it tumbled to the floor, pages flapping open. The cat leaped down and began pawing at the pages, flipping them more earnestly than it did even with the catnip ball, till its paw came to rest on a right-hand leaf.

It looked up at Crowley expectantly. It sat on the book. It lifted its forequarters to sit only on its hunkers, the forepaws crossed primly in front of it in a gesture that… he knew that posture…

“Oh bugger a salamander,” Crowley said. “It’s you.”

The cat dropped back down on its forepaws, and in a very human – or angelic – gesture, nodded its head three times.

* * *

“You want me to do this one?” said Crowley, tapping the page. He wasn’t familiar with the demon involved, but Hell was a big place, lots of junior spear-carriers he’d never met. “She looks a right tart.”

The cat patted the page again. That seemed to be yes.

“Is that who did this to you?" _Yes._ "I’ll turn her inside out – “

The cat actually moved its head from side to side. _No._

“Just for my own satisfaction, angel.”

The cat shook its head again. For some reason, the revenge that was a blue-hot fire under Crowley’s breastbone wasn’t a good idea. “She’ll put it right if I have to – “

The cat butted its head against his shin then, which he took to mean Yes, that’s right now. He picked up the book and carried it over to the desk, where the banker’s lamp illuminated a positioning of candles, a series of formulas, a small assortment of objects that were supposed to go inside the circle. The cat hopped up on the desk and knocked a paperknife to the floor, then jumped down and pawed at it. Crowley frowned at it for a moment. It rolled and showed its belly.

“Now you’re just being a cat,” he said. It cocked its head. “You trollop.”

The preparations took a little over an hour. He had to pop next door to the fetish shop briefly and pay the puzzled proprietress a few pounds for a Gothic piece of black-magic-themed jewelry that he’d remembered seeing in the shop, and which happened to be exactly the right thing to prop against the centre candle. The cat gave itself a full grooming on the blotter meanwhile, finishing to look over his shoulder. It hopped down, pushed one of the candles a few centimeters to the left, and sat back.

“Meets your approval?” said Crowley. “All right, stand back.”

The cat retreated from the edge of the circle and hopped up in the desk chair, taking its sweet time. As cats do.

* * *

The demon that twisted and struggled against invisible bonds in the centre of the circle was one of the more attractive ones. Hastur and the rest that he usually dealt with hadn’t gotten the memo about trying to look at least a little appealing to mortals, no matter how good a role model Crowley fancied himself, but this one had a sleek, sharp-featured beauty, black hair oiled tight to her head before trailing down her back in a thick plait, sigils along her arms but then, everyone was wearing tats these days. She spat.

“Throw all the tantrums you want, you’re banged up in there,” said Crowley. “I suppose you’re wondering why I’ve called you here?”

Her voice was a little out of phase, as on a transatlantic trunk call.

“_You willl telll me.”_

“”Had some complaints about a job of yours,” said Crowley. “Want it rolled back. Hasn’t made management happy.”

He gestured to take in the alcove of the shop where Aziraphale sat on his hunkers on the Queen Anne chair, grooming his ear.

“_You want me to restore the angel? That soft, pathetic glutton?”_

“Not a glutton, just goes for a spot of good cooking,” said Crowley. “Just like he was, down to the bowtie. Chop-chop. Quicker we’re done, quicker you’re off.”

“_Why do youu asssk thisss?”_

“None of your business why management wants what it wants,” he said. “You exceeded your commission, they want it put right. It is not the wish of Hell at this time that this angel be incommoded. There are greater plans on foot than your petty vengeance.” He hoped he sounded convincing. He knew he had a lot of pull Downstairs; she must know it too.

_“I will do thisss but you must hearr me firssst.”_

“You’re not in a position to bargain.”

_“No bargainss. You musst only hearr me.”_

“All ears,” said Crowley

_“Knowledge iss mine. Since I dwelt in Aea I have spoken with the tongue of prophecy.”_

“Yeah, yeah.”

_“You sshall seek this one again, and he shall not come. You shall pursue the child, and he shall be hidden from you. You shall be boundd by Heaven and hunted by Hell.”_

“Sounds impressive,” said Crowley. “Can we get on with it? Haven’t got all day.” He repeated one of the gestures that had brought her finally into form. She writhed and spat again, then, eyes blazing, intoned a half dozen words. Crowley felt the floor of the bookshop all but shift under his feet; the candle he was holding nearly slipped from his fingers. He stumbled back against the desk, braced himself. The demon in the circle shrieked. There was a thump that he felt more than heard, and a familiar huff.

_“Now releaassse me,” _ snarled the demon in a low, cold tone.

“Never happier,” said Crowley. “You have my promise I’ll make it right Downstairs. Thanks loads.”

He held up the candle and rang the bookshop’s doorbell, which he’d taken down for the use.

The demon vanished, leaving a faint stench that was something like burning brakes.

“My dear boy, do you think you could fetch a bottle of that Cotes du Rhone I laid in? You know where I keep it,” came a quavery voice from behind him.

* * *

“_Snowflake?” _the angel said when he’d gotten outside a glass of the wine. “Really, Crowley.”

“Had to call you something,” said the demon. “Would you have rather Tibs? Or Macavity?”

Aziraphale didn’t answer. He still looked shaken, but Crowley had to admit that all the feline grooming had carried over into his human form. His hair was neat and his tartan tie perfectly knotted.

“So how did this happen?” asked Crowley.

“Pour me a bit more of that.”

He complied. “Spot of lunch, perhaps? Well, more like early supper, now.”

“Now that you mention it, I’m famished,” said Aziraphale. “That sushi place we went last month in Dean Street? I’m absolutely craving some of their yellowfin tuna.”

* * *

“Now spill,” said Crowley when the meal had been ordered. “This has got to be good.”

“Well, if you must know, I’d gone to the Greek place, remember Nisos Kirka, the one we went to after seeing _Cats?_”

“Bloody boring piece of fluff that was.”

“Well, I just had a fancy for some grape leaves and that fried Kasseri they serve, and some of that _divine_ Baklava, and I wanted a good red with it and you know how people will serve a red too young, and I sent it back, and she – “

“She? You mean the demon? The one that was here?”

“How was I meant to know? She had a bit of a dark feeling about her, but I thought she was just bad-tempered. I suppose that place is her cover.”

“Well, she’s pretty junior,” said Crowley. “Or else she's been demoted pretty harshly. Seemed like she might have lost the plot a bit. Just for one thing, that kind of spell would have rolled off me like – well, like Holy Water off _you._ But you need to watch yourself more, angel. She must have rumbled you.”

“All she said when she brought the baklava was ‘I see you like to indulge yourself. It must be catching.’ It seemed a little personal, but as I said, she had been acting a bit odd.” Aziraphale’s eyes widened as a beautifully presented platter of nigiri sushi, with wasabi radish and tamari set down beside a tiny dipping plate, arrived between them. “And, well, I had paid the tab and was crossing the end of the alley just past their door, and there was a sound back there, and – well, there I was. On all fours. It was maddening getting used to the perspective.”

“So you came to me,” said Crowley, feeling a warmth in his belly that wasn’t from the wasabi.

“Well, I simply didn’t know where else to go,” said the angel. “”Also, it was Infernal magic. I hoped you might know something about it. The problem was getting you to understand what had happened.”

“Still not exactly sure I do.”

“Well, I was off my guard after that lovely repast,” said Aziraphale, “or she’d never have been able to do that to – well, a _Principality.” _He set his shoulders back a little, with tipsy dignity. “And Circe had this habit of turning men into beasts. After all the versions of Homer I’ve read, I’d never imagined she was a demon, but it does seem an extreme hobby. I’d been indulging – that seems to be when she found her victims most vulnerable. For all I know she does this several times a week as recreation.” He chopsticked wasabi onto a roll, savored it. “I suppose the form might have had something to do with what was on my mind. I’d been humming that Bustopher Jones song.”

“Don’t remind me,” said Crowley, rolling his eyes upward behind the dark glasses.

“Well,” he added a little more seriously, leaning on the table with the arm that held his sake cup. “I’m glad you’re back.”

“So am I, dear boy. Cats can’t enjoy wasabi.” With his mouth slightly full, he added “This toro sashimi is amazing. Tuck in.”

Crowley made a gesture at eating. Mostly, though, he simply sipped sake and watched the angel. He hoped he wasn’t making his relief too obvious.

* * *

Back at the shop, they opened another bottle of the wine and sat back.

“I do have to thank you again,” said the angel, who had already done it four or five times. “Not just for getting me put right but… Well, you really did take good care of me. I saw you studying that little book.”

“Do something, do it right,” said Crowley a little uncomfortably. “Did you really like the catnip?"

“Well, I was in a cat body,” said the angel, “so it was like a good absinthe. And – well, part of the time I was all me, and part of the time I was almost all cat. It came and went.” He looked thoughtful. “It was rather nice.”

“What, having four legs and having to use a litter tray? She could have at least made you an angelically stainless cat.”

“Part of the mischief she meant, I suppose. But – well, it was ever so nice being petted. And the duck.” The angel smiled reminiscently. “It was very kind of you to buy me the duck.”

“Well, you did a whole pantomime of burying that 9-Lives stuff.”

“I had no other way to get the point across.” Aziraphale sipped, closed his eyes, savoring. “You really should speak more kindly to your plants, though,” he said, surprising Crowley.

“You would say that.”

“And you needn’t have – _squirted _me. That was undignified.” A refill. ”I’m afraid it startled me awfully. The – cat form, I suppose. And it just came naturally to hide. You – ” The angel seemed to be stifling a giggle.

“Don’t laugh,” said Crowley as dangerously as he could manage after two halves of French wine bracketing a couple of flasks of sake.

“But you made such a picture, all stretched out on the carpet trying to coax me out. Kitty-kitty-kitty.”

‘“I felt bad about it.”

“You’re a demon. Demons don’t feel bad about things, do they?”

Crowley sensed that Aziraphale was baiting him, if only gently. He didn’t want to go down this road much further, because he _had_ felt miserable about frightening the cat, and terrified for Aziraphale when he realized what had happened, and blindingly, brutally enraged at the demon Circe for making his friend miaow for Blink treats like a common moggie.

“Why didn’t you want me to turn her inside out?” he asked.

“I thought you would see that once you got past being upset. Someone would have noticed Downstairs. It’s one thing to pull rank and bluff – that was well done, by the way – it’s another to go on a war footing with one of your own. I wouldn’t want you to get in trouble over it, dear boy.”

“You’re just a big pussycat.”

“That was pawky even for you.”

The perilous moment of feeling had passed. Crowley set his glass down. “Well, I’ve got to sober up and be going,” he said. “Supposed to meet someone in a graveyard. Load of bollocks, if you ask me.” He pulled on his coat. “Speaking of which – you made a _very_ masculine tomcat. I was impressed.”

Aziraphale blushed to the roots of his hair, huffing. “Crowley_, really – “_

“At least I didn’t get you to the vet to have something done about that. Wouldn’t have wanted you spraying, you know.”

“The very implication – !”

“By the way, will you be wanting the tray?” Crowley was grinning evilly now, assuming he could have grinned any other way.

“Oh! Begone, foul fiend!” cried Aziraphale. “And – we will _not_ mention this business again!!”

“See myself out,” said Crowley. But just before he got to the door, the angel called after him: “Really, Crowley… I don’t know how I can repay you.”

“Stay out of trouble,” the demon called back.

* * *

It had been nice. Petting him. Sleeping with him in the bed. Holding him in his lap with a good Scotch at his elbow. He scarcely dared admit how nice – even nicer now that he knew it had been Aziraphale purring under his hand. Not to anyone, not especially to the angel.

Crowley paused beside the Bentley and looked back at the faint light from the recesses of the shop, barely reaching the window of A. Z. Fell & Co. It would have looked just right in the winter sun with a beautiful white cat sleeping in it.

“Sentimental wanker,” he muttered and slipped into the driver's seat.

* * *

Aziraphale set down his glass and went over to the Sleepypod, which Crowley had forgotten to collect when he left. The catnip ball was inside. Holding it delicately, he walked to the door; could see Crowley outlined in the twilight, standing beside the car just at the zebra crossing. As he watched, the demon turned his head back for a moment. Silly boy, trying to swagger so. He’d seen the demon prone on a carpet, calling him Snowy-puss and pleading with him to come out from under the couch. He gazed until the Bentley had disappeared into the distance.

“Miaow,” he said.

_finis_

**Author's Note:**

> This is my fifth work in this fandom since joining this site a month ago with zero expectation of writing even one. Every time I upload one, another idea pops into my head the next time I go out for a hill run and get some blood to my brain. I'd say Stop Me Before I Kill Again, but it's too much fun.
> 
> Come say hello on Tumblr @CopperPlateBeech


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